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"Parallel Connection," a piece by Birdo and OSGEMEOS, plays on 45 screens in Times Square nightly.

How a two-hundred-year-old opera made the transition to an online motion comic for contemporary audiences.

São Paulo-based Birdo Studio was selected to create Rio's 2016 Olympic mascots.

Not many people know this, but every night at 3:33AM time is frozen for a moment. During what is a fraction of second to mortal eyes, there is a second night, a secret one where the spirits of the city come out to play. That is the story of the eternal battle for the soul of São Paulo, the clash between bohemia and authoritarianism, between comedy and horror.

“It’s the way the world works. Essentially, poverty is what makes the rich rich.”

Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty is a new documentary by Ben Lewis, debuting this week throughout Europe, and on PBS in the United States. The special, will be shown on TV in over 70 countries, is an animated survey of over 10,000 years of poverty. It draws on interviews with economists and historians including Jeffrey Sachs (author, The End of Poverty), Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Esther Duflo (MIT Poverty Lab and author, Poor Economics), Tim Hitchcock (Council of the Royal Historical Society), Emmanuel Akyeampong (Historian of Africa, Harvard) and Oscar Guardiola (Author, What if Latin America Ruled The World).

The animation portions of the film were directed by Fons Schiedon, designed by Cesare Davolio and Maarten Janssens, and animated by São Paulo, Brazil-based Birdo.

The director discusses the film at length on his website. American viewers can watch the entire film on the PBS website. Otherwise, here’s the trailer:

(Thanks, Fraser MacLean)